ISU, Ames Police continue respect message into fall campaign

Wednesday

Aug 30, 2017 at 1:39 PMAug 30, 2017 at 10:09 PM

By Grayson Schmidt Staff Writer gschmidt@amestrib.com

In an effort to continue their message of “Donut Disrespect,” the Ames and Iowa State University police departments dropped their first video of the fall campaign Wednesday, with a little help from Cyclone football coach Matt Campbell and his message of “raising the standard” at ISU.

“(ISU) athletics has been extremely supportive,” ISU Police Officer Anthony Greiter said. “‘Raise the standard’ and ‘donut disrespect’ kind of go hand in hand, and coach Campbell saw that connection and it was a match made to be.”

In concurrence with the message of “Donut Disrespect,” both police departments are encouraging students, faculty and everyone in the Ames and ISU communities to “be a fan in the stand, not a pain in the grass.” The message was designed to push fans to tailgate responsibly, so that everyone can enjoy their game day experience.

“Our goal is to focus on respectful behavior during football game day,” Greiter said.

The Ames Police Department launched its “Quick Tips with Officer Snyder” video segments earlier this year on social media to provide the community with simple and fun messages or reminders on obeying the law. Earlier this month Ames police launched the first in a series of song parody videos, which dealt with the topic of underage drinking with the start of the semester.

The first video — titled “Beer Drinker” — parodied the song “Cheerleader” by Omi, and according to Ames Police Community Outreach Officer Eric Snyder, served as a springboard into the Fall Campaign.

“We’re kind of playing on the popularity of football, and the fact that football season generally provides more opportunities for people to make those mistakes, be it being a poor fan or drinking and driving,” Snyder said. “A lot of the issues that we see surrounding the fall, a lot of them culminate around game day and around the game, so we thought it would be appropriate to focus on game day, game weekends, and focus on football season to get the message out about respecting each other and being a good fan.”

Snyder said that both departments will be handing out shirts at this week’s game against Northern Iowa that say “Be a fan in the stand, not a pain in the grass.” So far, both Snyder and Greiter said that they had not seen all of the reaction on social media, as they are already filming the next videos that will be released in the coming weeks, but that from the little they have seen, the response has been positive.

“We’ve seen a pretty good response in the time that we’ve had to look, but I think there will be more to come, and as it gets shared and spread around, I think we’ll do pretty well,” Greiter said.

Snyder did not offer up any hints for the next video’s subject, but he did say that as with previous videos, it will use humor to convey an important message.

“It’s going to involve football, and it’ll probably involve some humor and some things you’re used to seeing done in the Ames PD and ISU PD way of making a parody of things, but giving out an important message that has a serious tone to it, but using humor to get that message across,” Snyder said.